Venice Florida - A 96-year-old man was ambushed and mauled by a rabid otter early Friday morning as he walked past brush near a lake in the Venice East neighborhood.

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Morrell Denton was midway through his two-mile daily walk when the otter confronted him on the sidewalk. Denton said he thought it was someone's pet.

But the otter "grabbed me by the foot and pulled on my leg and I went down,” said Denton in his living room, shortly after returning from the Venice Regional Medical Center's emergency room about seven hours after the attack.

Covered in white bandages on both hands, and with nine stitches on his badly bruised forehead, Denton said he pulled the otter off with one hand before the animal started biting him on the other. The animal bit him to the bone on several fingers.

“I kept trying to get him off me,” Denton said. “It's like nothing I've heard of.”

Two men saw the attack and raced to Denton's aid, one striking at the otter with a shovel as the other called 911.

Christopher Janssen, 36, was bitten by the otter but the other rescuer, 53-year-old Raymond Duval was not injured.

An ambulance arrived minutes later, taking Denton and Duval to the hospital.